The Suitcase That Was Never Yours
Over the years, I’ve spoken with many people who suffered abuse during childhood. Although the details differed, there was one thing that seemed to appear again and again.
The victim often carried the guilt.
That has always struck me as one of the strangest and saddest features of human life. The person who was harmed somehow ends up feeling responsible for what was done to them.
Children are especially vulnerable to this confusion. A child depends upon adults for protection, guidance, and survival. When something frightening or harmful happens, it may seem easier for the child to believe, “I must have done something wrong,” than to face the possibility that the adults around them have failed in their responsibilities.
Years pass. The events may be long over. Yet the guilt remains.
People carry it like a heavy suitcase. After a while, they may not even remember where they got it. They simply assume it belongs to them.
But not every burden we carry is ours.
One of the great turning points in healing may come when a person begins to ask a simple question:
“Who packed this suitcase?”
The answer is often surprising.
The shame may not belong to them.
The guilt may not belong to them.
The self-condemnation may not belong to them.
Those burdens may have originated elsewhere and simply been handed down to someone too young to know they could refuse them.
Healing does not necessarily mean forgetting the past. It may mean recognizing that some of the weight we have carried for years was never ours to carry.
The victim was not responsible, it is always the victimizer.
Sometimes freedom begins with nothing more dramatic than seeing that clearly.
And once we see it clearly, we may discover that the old suitcase we’ve been dragging around all these years will finally lose its power.
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Here’s the Bardo bus now!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby